The Acton Institute’s unique position in the free-market movement is that its advocacy and education on economic issues is integrated with Judeo-Christian teachings about the dignity and inestimable worth of the human person. The Acton Institute has always understood the human person as a co-creator, producer, and innovator, not as a greedy materialist or consumer.
The first words that God spoke to the created family are words that declare that humanity is created for a moral purpose, with human dominion over the earth, and to embrace our vocational calling. That calling is a living out of the dignity we have inherited by virtue of our very nature and creation. Indeed, God Himself was at work at the creation. Christian authors Gerard Berghoef and Lester DeKoster in Work: The Meaning of Your Life-A Christian Perspective, republished by Christian’s Library Press, declares that “God so arranges work that it develops the soul.”
Acton President and co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico reminded those gathered at Acton’s 20th Anniversary Dinner that we must get Christian anthropology correct if we our going to get anything correct at all. That begins with the human person as the image and likeness of the Creator. This is essential for encouraging a moral culture, which is necessary for a truly free society to flourish.
That will remain the mission of and goal of the Acton Institute: always advancing a free and virtuous society. Those who have generously supported our work for two decades recognize how essential this work has been. Unlike other organizations, we are not involved in partisan politics nor lobbying efforts on policy issues. Acton’s real effectiveness lies in the power of its ideas. The Institute is a truth-seeking organization that is concerned about limits being placed on humans to flourish towards the greatest truth, which is man’s relationship and destiny with his Creator.
